Games We Play
by thefalconwarrior
Summary: It's just another night in Gotham City. Just another seedy street. Just an empty alley and two boys with cigarettes, pinpricks of light between their fingertips.


**A/N:** Inktober Prompt #5: Chicken

Quick one. Was rereading The Outsiders recently. Inspired from Ponyboy Curtis and Curly Shepherd's game of chicken

* * *

**Games We Play**

To be honest, Jason wasn't completely sure what touched off the game in the first place.

But here he was, a hot cigarette in his right hand, the left held up in front of him, wincing as the heat of Alex Howe's own cigarette burned through his finger.

"You really shouldn't do that, you know."

Jason started at the small voice, and yelled a curse as Alex's cigarette dragged down his palm.

"God damn it, Howe!"

"Shit, who the heck are you?" Howe demanded, staring narrow-eyed at figure in the entrance of the alley.

The kid was frickin tiny, a fact only exaggerated by the baggy black hoodie. He was wearing jeans and sneakers, and there was a strap around his neck, the hoodie zipped over a bulge hanging at about chest height. There wasn't really anything about the kid to suggest he wasn't from around the neighborhood, but that's exactly what Jason's instincts were screaming at him.

"You could get pretty bad burns," the kid went on solemnly. Jesus, how old was this kid? Five? "And then if you don't take care of them properly they could get infected and if they get infected you could die."

Howe snorted, still eyeing the kid, and Jason concluded that his own instincts had provided him the same conclusion as Jason's. "Kid, if you walk down the street someone could decide to use you as target practice, and if they use you as target practice they'll shoot you, and if they shoot you you'll die." Jason felt his eyebrows rise slightly.

The kid was weirdly unfazed. "Well, the leading causes of death in America include car accidents and heart disease..." Okay, this whole thing was seriously starting to feel unreal.

Alex eyed the (slightly) younger boy on his left, sent a quick glance back at the kid across from them, and raised an eyebrow.

"Wonder what he's hiding, there. Should we jump him?"

Jason scowled. Sure, in the world they lived in, you did whatever you could to survive. But Jason still had a mom (even if she was drugged up half—okay, more than half—the time) and a home (even if the landlord was threatening to kick them out within the month)-okay, yeah, he'd have to find some way to get some cash soon enough. But...

The kid was fricking tiny. Teenagers were fair game out here. Preteens, even. But this kid looked like he was barely more than a toddler.

He didn't want to jump a frickin toddler.

So he turned his face slightly towards Howe, narrowing his eyes into his best "dangerous" face. Howe's own eyebrows shut up as he turned to the kid—

He was gone. Jason could have—would have, now, as the image of the pint-sized kid was already beginning to fade—he would have sworn the kid was not a street kid. But he sure could disappear like one. Mind and matter.

(That probably wasn't the right way to use that phrase. But what the heck ever.)

"The hell you take your eyes offa him?" Howe asked, irritated, dropping his cigarette to the ground and absently rubbing the burn Jason's had left behind.

"Was only a second," Jason said evenly, and Howe snorted and shook his head.

"Wuss."

"Speak for ya' self," Jason muttered as the other boy strolled away.

He studied the cigarette between his fingers, wondering if he really wanted to smoke something that had been in contact with Howe's grimy hands. Sighing, he flicked it away and stepped out of the alley.

The kid—as weird as he had been—was already slipping from his memory. The most important thing, from that odd exchange, was the realization that Jason needed to scrape up some cash soon.

Pausing at the entrance of the alley, he stared out into the darkened streets lit up with dim, broken streetlights and eye-searing neon signs. Silhouetted figures lingered at corners and paced up the cracked sidewalks.

Back to the grind, he thought bitterly. And stepped out into the night.

* * *

A/N: It's obvious who the kid was, right.


End file.
